“Liam? I can’t sleep.” A small boy walked into the room, and Elle and I froze. He looked about five years old and had the same black wings, blond hair, and blue eyes. The spitting image of Liam, but younger.
Holy fucking crystals.
Liam had a brother. And a mom. Liam had a family…
My mind spun.
Liam set the soup down and stood just as another boy appeared in the doorway to grab the little brother and tuck him into his arms. This boy was about twelve, again with black fae wings and blond hair.
How many of them were there? Holy shit.
“I got him,” the twelve-year-old mini-Liam said. “How’s Mom?”
Liam sighed, looking at the frail woman in the bed. “Well, she’s not in pain right now.”
His face crumbled. “I guess that’s good.”
Liam put his arms out. “Come on, I’ll sing you a song,” he told the littlest one.
My brain malfunctioned at the thought of Liam sweetly singing a little boy a night-night song. I had grossly misjudged him. We all had.
My mind raced with questions. He was protecting an entire family? A mother, brothers? How many brothers were there? Why hadn’t he told me? My throat tightened with emotion.
The sound of a snapping twig brought Elle and me out of our trance, and I turned toward the sound—just in time to see a blur before I was cracked over the head.
Then it was lights out.
When I came to, my eyelids sprang open to see slivers of moonlight filtering into a dark room. I was staring up at a ceiling fan. The base of my skull throbbed, causing me to wince as I glanced around the space.
“Are you here for the crystal?” Liam’s voice was near, dark and full of emotion. I was lying in a bed—from the smell of it, his bed—and Elle was draped over a beanbag, passed out.
Liam crouched in front of me, and that was when I saw the knife in his hands.
Would he hurt me? Kill me, his soulmate, to protect his family?
My throat tightened. “You don’t know me if you think I could do that. Not to you. Especially not after seeing…your family.”
He flinched. “You saw?”
I nodded, trying to sit up before a wave of dizziness washed over me. I grabbed my head and whimpered.
“I’m sorry. My guards don’t know who you are. I had to stop them from killing you both.” He slipped the knife into a thigh holster and sat down on the bed beside me.
We both looked out the window, moonlight causing each blade of grass to look magical. We were so close that I could have moved my hand just a few inches and touched him, but I didn’t. Everything felt far away when it came to Liam. I didn’t know anything about him because he’d never let me in.
“Are they your brothers?” I looked over at him and noticed how stressed he seemed. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his mouth was set in a constant frown.
He nodded.
“How many do you have?”
“Five brothers. Plus my mom. Six people that depend on me for food, medicine, energy from the crystal, protection, shelter…”
His voice cracked, and I moved my hand until the back of it was touching his. We might not have been in a solid relationship, considering that he had broken up with me two weeks ago, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be a good friend.
He reached out and squeezed my palm.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. What I’d felt for him had been all-encompassing, a love that had consumed me, but clearly, he hadn’t felt the same.
“Would it have mattered?” he scoffed.
I yanked my hand back. “Yes!”
He turned to face me, his face contorted with rage. “Since the day I met you, all you’ve said is how Faerie needs all the crystals and we shouldn’t have any.”
I threw my hands into the air. “That doesn’t mean I think you should die! It’s just a fact. The Faerie crystals belong in Faerie. Not on Earth with the dark fae.”
His face pulled into a menacing scowl. “We aren’t dark, we just aren’t exactly like you with your pink hair and shiny pink wings.”
I sighed. “That’s not what I—”
“All this time, you’ve called me a dark fae, Halfling, Son of Darkness, and you speak about my people as if we are demons. Why the fuck would I trust you with my most treasured secret? My family.” He crossed his arms and glared at me.
The wind rushed out of me then, and tears pricked my eyes. My heart sank into my stomach, and I had to keep myself from sobbing. He was right.
“Liam…I…those names are just what I was told to call you. Your own father calls his people that.”
He glared at me. “We are not a part of my father’s cult.”
Cult was an apt word. I needed to fix this—I needed him to know that I saw us as equal.
“What would you like me to call you and your people?” I suddenly felt like a racist shitbag, flinging the words dark and Halfling around like they wouldn’t bother him. I had no idea how he felt about it.
He looked at me incredulously. “Just because we have a human parent doesn’t make us different from you. We’re fae. We have wings and magic and horns and everything else your people have.”
I nodded. I didn’t want to tell him that none of my people had horns—that it was an attribute only the dark fae had. What mattered here was respecting his self-identity.
“Okay. You’re fae. You’re like me.”
He sighed, running his hands through his hair. “I’m so tired, Lily. I’ve been doing this for so long, and I’m tired.”
I couldn’t get the image of him with his mother out of my head.
“What’s wrong with her?” I whispered. “Your mom.”
His face
